Do we have any cases where the Romans intentionally conjugated a noun or adjective into a verb? This is common in English and other modern languages, so I'm assuming it is a natural concept. However, it seems that the Romans didn't often think of their grammar, as there do not appear to be native words for verb, noun, etc.

My understanding is that this tendency is more common in ancient Greek than in Latin, but that's just from something my first Greek teacher said ten thousand years ago, so it could be totally wrong.

In any case, it seems to be fairly rare; then again, it's fairly rare in English too—we might talk about somebody "Clinton-izing" something or "Coulter-izing" something (sorry, politics on the brain), but not very often.

EDIT: An explanation from a different angle from 1841's Linguæ Grammaticæ Rudimenta:

A noun can be turned into a verb in Latin.
But since both nouns and verbs have endings — quite incompatible ones one might add — an adjective cannot work as a verb as such.
Instead, slight modifications are needed.

In other words, verbs can be derived from nouns.
In English nouns and verbs can look alike, and the derivation need not do anything to the word, other than reinterpreting it as a verb.

Consider these derivations with minimal changes to the word, for example:

I can't just decide to make any verb a noun, can I? No "Grumio, Grumere, Grumivi, Grumitus" for me?
– tox123Sep 18 '16 at 17:06

@tox123, do you mean making any noun a verb? Typically these derivations are first conjugation and regular. I see no problem with grumo, grumare, grumavi, grumatus, although you may need to explain what you mean by it if you use it. You can apply this to any noun I guess, although some of the new verbs will be more natural than others.
– Joonas Ilmavirta♦Sep 18 '16 at 17:10

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I believe tox123 is referring to the famous Grumio from the Cambridge Latin Course... Presumably "to behave in a Grumio-like fashion"? :)
– jogloranSep 18 '16 at 22:04

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@tox123, I misinterpreted your comment, not knowing Grumio before another comment corrected me. If it's third declension (Grumio, Grumionis), I'd be tempted to use the verb Grumionizari. I've seen this -izari suffix to mean acting like someone.
– Joonas Ilmavirta♦Sep 19 '16 at 9:24

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@tox123 All hail the glorious Grumio! In our Latin class, we have declared Grumio a god, and have this whole religion and communist manifesto for him. It's pretty great. See this question for a passage from His holy scripture.
– Sam KSep 19 '16 at 16:26